Small business owners struggle to sustain their businesses over time. According to U.S. Census data in 2014, only half of all small businesses survived beyond the first 5 years of operation, and only a third survived longer than 10 years. Grounded with the strategic contingency theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies small service business owners used to succeed beyond the first 5 years of operation. The target population consisted of 4 owners of small service and retail businesses in Arlington, VA, with fewer than 50 employees who have succeeded in business longer than 5 years. Through a process of methodological triangulation, data collected from financial documents, publicly available records, and external sources supplemented semistructured interview data. Using thematic analysis by coding narrative segments, 3 themes emerged including developing a unique marketing strategy, developing strategic leadership skills, and required business skills for sustainability. Successful unique marketing strategies emerged from understanding customer needs. The results from this study could benefit business owners by improving business success rates, which would have a positive economic effect on local community, including job creation, and sustainable economic stability. The implications for positive social change might include the reversal of small business failure trends through the application of successful business strategies.

The mental health of healthcare workers during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was a serious concern for healthcare professionals and the mental health field. One area in West Africa where healthcare workers played a significant role during the Ebola outbreak of 2014 and 2015 was Sierra Leone. This qualitative research study was designed to explore the perceptions of Sierra Leoneans healthcare workers' mental health, how they coped, and treatment they received while providing care for Ebola virus patients. This study, with a phenomenological research approach, used purposeful sampling to recruit 10 healthcare workers to participate in semi structured, open-ended interviews. The stress theory model and a hermeneutic phenomenology conceptual framework were used as a lens of analysis to understand the views of healthcare workers who worked directly with Ebola virus patients in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The results of the analysis of the collected data produced 9 major themes. The major themes suggest that healthcare workers experienced mental health symptoms such as depression and anxiety, personal thoughts and feelings such as insomnia, and suicidal ideation. Strategies for coping included using the Bible; and the detrimental impact included facing discrimination after the Ebola outbreak. Most of the healthcare workers blame the government for not providing adequate coping resources, which led to the personal consequence of hopelessness. This study may benefit mental health professionals working in an epidemic. Additionally, this study may contribute to social change by providing a deeper understanding of the mental health system and healthcare workers in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

<p>This thesis has its point of departure in the identified knowledge gap, which includes the importance of the information systems (IS) outsourcing relationship for studying the success of IS outsourcing. This research study, therefore, is structured with the belief that the disregard of the client-IS supplier relationship when studying IS outsourcing is paradoxical. Paradoxical since the impact of the relationship on the overall IS outsourcing can make the difference between success, less success and even failure. In contrast to the majority of prior research, which has focused IS outsourcing in its entirety, this research study percieves IS outsourcing as a process. Because prior research shows that the success or failure of IS outsourcing is connected to its implementation, this thesis focuses the post-contract stage of the IS outsourcing.</p><p>The purpose chosen and addressed is to develop a conceptual framework for describing and explaining the degree of successful outcome of the IS outsourcing process using a relationship perspective. To approach this purpose, a literature review study is conducted. The literature review study includes the integration of three theoretical fields: IS, interorganisational business relationships and IS outsourcing. The knowledge domains of particular interest are 'strategies, approaches and frameworks for the IS life cycle', 'the interaction approach' and 'IS outsourcing success'.</p><p>The purpose is focused through the identification of key conditions, dimensions and interrelations among dimensions. These identified elements, constituting the core elements of the conceptual framework, are a result of the conducted literature review study. The key conditions are identified according to their influence on the degree of successful outcome of the IS outsourcing process from a relationship perspective. Due to the large amount of key conditions identified, they are categorised into nine dimensions: Atmosphere, Behaviour, Contract, Environment, Interatction, IS, Management, Organisation and Outcome. The identified interrelations among these dimensions are fruitful since they provide insights and a favourable point of departure for studying the degree of successful outcome of IS outsourcing processes.</p><p>The main contribution of this thesis is the conceptual framework for the IS outsourcing process. The key conditions, dimensions and interrelations constitute the conceptual framework as a result of their potential for describing and explaining the degree of successful outcome of the IS outsourcing process from a relationship perspective. The application of the conceptual framework provides managers with core elements to be considered during IS outsourcing decision-making and subsequent design of IS outsourcing. Its usage, moreover, is believed to support managers during the operationalisation of the post-contract stage of IS outsourcing processes. Finally, the conceptual framework is a fruitful 'tool' for future empirical research. Fruitful in the sense that it can provide useful and important insights into how different key conditions infuence the degree of successful outcome of IS outsourcing processes and how these key conditions are interrelated.</p>

E-commerce is far more common in large firms than in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a result SMEs risk competitive disadvantages. A growing body of research has attended to this problem but few studies examine the adoption of e-commerce from a broader contextual perspective. To be able to understand SMEs’ adoption of e-commerce it is desirable to study their contextual preconditions, approaches and effects. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the theory building in the e-commerce area by forming a conceptual framework over SMEs’ adoption of e-commerce: the ECA (Electronic Commerce Adoption) framework. A central starting point for the study is Pettigrew’s (1985) contextual framework for strategic changes. The analysis dimensions in Pettigrew’s framework − content, context and process − are adapted to adoption of e-commerce. Thus, the ECA framework consists of analysis models that focus on a) the content, b) the context and c) the process of e-commerce adoption in SMEs. Further, the ECA framework includes an analysis model over the interplay between content, context and process and a typology over adoption situations. The SME in its role as a supplier is the unit of analysis. The study uses an abductive approach where results from previous studies in areas such as e-commerce, information systems and decision making are used as sources for forming the ECA framework. The ECA framework is then applied to the collection, interpretation and analyze of empirical data from the case studies of two small and one medium-sized enterprise. The case studies lead to the identification of additional elements that are added to the analysis models. One contribution from the study is the typology over adoption situations. The typology, which builds on studies of Junghagen (1998) and Engsbo et al. (2001), divides the adoption of e-commerce in SMEs into five categories of adoption situations: proactive adoption situations, adaptive adoption situations, pragmatic adoption situations, forced adoption situations and enabled adoption situations. An adoption situation describes what is being adopted (content), why (context) and how (process). Another contribution is the so called adoption guides. These are contextual conditions whose states indicate if a SME will adopt e-commerce or not and if so, which adoption situation they are likely to find themselves in. The adoption guides are: the relative dependence on individual customers, the degree of customer pressure, the strategic needs of e-commerce, the information complexity and, the CEO’s extent of aversion towards risk-taking. Consequently two major conclusions from this study are that SMEs’ e-commerce adoption can be divided into five different adoption situations and a small number of contextual conditions – here called adoption guides – determine which of them a SME tend to go through. The typology enables organizations that educate SMEs or support their development of e-commerce to design their efforts more efficiently and researchers to diversify the studied population. As the study is theory building the contributions and conclusions are propositions that need to be tested empirically in future studies.

Bakgrund Som en följd av den ökade globaliseringen strävar normgivare ständigt efter en harmonisering av internationella redovisningsstandarder. I maj 2014 publicerade normgivaren IASB (International Accounting Standards Board) en ny standard för intäktsredovisning – IFRS 15. Vid framtagning av nya redovisningsstandarder ska normgivare utgå från en generell föreställningsram. Det faktum att kapitalmarknadens aktörer under de senaste åren har fått betydligt mer inflytande skulle kunna påverka IASB:s förhållningssätt till föreställningsramen. Vid framtagning av en ny redovisningsstandard ställs IASB också inför ett svårt avgörande gällande mängden upplysningar. Dagens komplexa ekonomiska verklighet kräver omfattande upplysningar, samtidigt som det visat sig att det kan bli för mycket. Då uppstår vad som benämns som disclosure overload. Syfte Studiens syfte är att skapa en förståelse för hur IFRS 15 förhåller sig till IASB:s föreställningsram och hur synpunkter från aktörer på kapitalmarknaden påverkat förhållningssättet. Studien syftar även till att undersöka hur IASB:s arbete med IFRS 15 ställer sig i relation till begreppet disclosure overload. Metod Vi har genomfört en kvalitativ studie där vi använt oss av sekundärdata. Vidare har vi haft en iterativ strategi och utgått från såväl befintlig forskning på ett deduktivt sätt, men även sökt bidra med ny kunskap i enlighet med en induktiv ansats. Slutsatser Studien konstaterar att IFRS 15, i jämförelse med tidigare standarder för intäktsredovisning, har ett bättre förhållningssätt till IASB:s föreställningsram. Aktörer på kapitalmarknaden har i vissa fall bidragit till ett bättre förhållningssätt, medan de i andra fall har gått emot föreställningsramen. Begreppet disclosure overload är komplext, samtidigt som IFRS 15 anses vara upplysningstung. Framtagningen av IFRS 15 kan anses ligga fel i tiden, med tanke på de pågående projekt som syftar till bättre upplysningskrav i finansiella rapporter. / Background As a result of the increased globalization, Standard-setters constantly strive to harmonize international accounting standards. In May 2014 IASB (International Accounting Standards Board) published a new standard revenue recognition - IFRS 15. With the development of new accounting standards, IASB must keep within a general mindset, commonly known as Conceptual Framework. The fact that the actors on the capital market in recent years have had considerable more leverage, could influence the IASB's approach to the general Framework. Another problem IASB faces while establishing a new accounting standard is disclosure. Today's complex economic reality requires extensive disclosures. Mean while it may appear there are too many disclosures, this is known as disclosure overload. Purpose The study's purpose is to create an understanding of how IFRS 15 relates to the IASB's Conceptual Framework and how the views of actors on the capital market have affected the approach. This study also aims to examine how the IASB's work on IFRS 15 stands in relation to the concept of disclosure overload. Methodolgy We conducted a qualitative study in which we have used secondary analysis. Furthermore, we have had an iterative approach and used current research in a deductive manner, we also searched new knowledge in accordance to an inductive approach. Conclusions This study concludes that IFRS 15, in comparison with previous standards for revenue recognition have a better approach to the Conceptual Framework. Actors on the capital market have in some cases contributed to a better approach, while in other cases have gone against the Conceptual Framework. The concept disclosure overload is complex and IFRS 15 will reqire accountants to use many disclosures. In view of the ongoing projects aimed at improving disclosure requirements, development of IFRS 15 can be regarded as bad timing.

No description available.

Thesis (MScEng (Industrial Engineering))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / This thesis reports on a research project conducted at Stellenbosch University, focusing on the field of information management, and contributing to the development of an approach for structuring information in such a manner that context becomes apparent, which on its part assists persons (and groups of persons) in selecting useful information from a larger whole, given a certain context. This document is composed of three general sections. The first section is a literature study focusing on the following topics: (1) Information overload: The amount of information in the world, as well as its rate of generation is discussed, together with the notion of information overload, its causes, symptoms and possible solutions. (2) Information utilisation in organisations: General concepts concerning the utilisation of information in organisations are discussed, together with the manners in which organisations fail in efficiently utilising information, but also some examples where organisations have succeeded. (3) Information modelling: Various well-known information modelling approaches currently employed to improve information utilisation are discussed and compared. It is however mentioned that none of these approaches are sufficiently general, flexible and simple enough to assist typical organisational knowledge workers in efficiently interacting with information. The second section of this thesis focuses on the conceptual framework information modelling approach currently being investigated at Stellenbosch University as a means for improving the information utilisation efficiency of organisational knowledge workers. The basic concepts of the approach are discussed, and it is compared with the more well-known information modelling approaches mentioned in the literature study. The research being conducted on the approach is further briefly discussed, which includes the purpose of this thesis (which is the development of a methodology for conceptual framework implementation in organisations), the research method followed, and the thesis hypothesis, which is: Information represented by a conceptual framework implemented through the use of the developed conceptual framework implementation methodology, offer a truthful view on information found in an organisation. The methodology developed is subsequently discussed in terms of its phases and activities, each of which is discussed in terms of its description, the rationale behind and prerequisites of its execution, details of the manner of its execution, and the eventual outputs thereof. The final section of this thesis provides information on the validation of the conceptual framework implementation methodology described in the previous section, which were done in two parts. A theoretical validation was done through a comparison of the developed methodology with existing methodologies for the implementation of other information modelling approaches. A practical validation was also done through two case studies by which conceptual frameworks were implemented at two separate organisations. The document is finally concluded through a summary of the contents of this thesis, the outcome of the hypothesis test, and some closing remarks.

Due to the current globalization in business and investments that generate a highly interrelated business world, it is a must to have a common standard in accounting that brings transparency and the real use of information. According to that, this article presents a comparative analysis of the conceptual framework for the preparation and presentation of financial statements of the two important international accounting models of normative use: the accounting standards established by the FASB and the IASB. The conceptual framework provides a guideline to prepare and present financial statements and at the same time it is a basis for the enactment of international financial reporting standards. To this day, there are some convergence agreements on conceptual frameworks between FASB and IASB, in charge of producing standards, which implies joint work in relation to their respective frameworks, with the purpose of developing a better conceptual framework, common for both institutions. With respect to this, in the article we can find proposals and reflections related to the convergence of conceptual frameworks, in order to enable the feasibility of a convergent framework as an important document in the revision and the issuance process of future international financial reporting standards. / Debido a la continua globalización de los negocios y la globalización de las inversiones, que genera un mundo de los negocios altamente interrelacionado, es imprescindible contar con estándares comunes en contabilidad que mejoren la transparencia y la utilidad de la información. En ese sentido, el presente artículo presenta un análisis comparativo del marco conceptual para la preparación y presentación de los estados financieros de los dos modelos contables internacionales importantes de uso normativo: las normas contables emitidas por el FASB y el IASB. El marco conceptual proporciona una guía para preparar y presentar estados financieros y sirve de base para emitir normas internacionales de información financiera. A la fecha existen acuerdos de convergencia de marcos conceptuales, entre los organismos emisores de normas FASB y el IASB, lo cual implica un trabajo conjunto sobre sus respectivos marcos conceptuales, con la finalidad de desarrollar un mejor marco conceptual que sea común para ambas entidades. Al respecto, en el artículo se plantean propuestas y reflexiones vinculadas al proceso de convergencia de marcos conceptuales, para aproximar la viabilidad de un marco conceptual convergente como documento base en el proceso de revisión y emisión de futuras normas internacionales de información financiera.

Projetos de SIG (Sistemas de Informação Geográfica), em geral, ainda não apresentam modelo conceitual de banco de dados geográficos. Os implementadores de SIG se preocupam com a aquisição dos dados (captura e adaptação), que é a etapa mais cara, e dão, ainda, pouca atenção à modelagem. A utilização de modelos conceituais faz com que os usuários controlem melhor sua base de dados e tirem maior proveito do SIG. O objetivo deste trabalho é definir um conjunto de procedimentos de engenharia reversa de bancos de dados espaciais que auxiliem na criação e manutenção de modelos conceituais para aplicações de SIG a partir de dados já existentes. Estes procedimentos podem contribuir para um aumento na qualidade dos SIG implementados, auxiliando na popularização da prática de modelagem conceitual de banco de dados geográficos. São estudados três formatos de transferência utilizados por usuários de SIG. A partir daí, é proposto uma arquitetura de sistema de engenharia reversa para SIG. / Even with the increasing use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), conceptual modeling of geographic databases (GDB) is not yet usual among GIS professionals. This fact can in part be explained by the professional profile of most GIS designers. They usually are more familiar with specific GIS applications than with database technology. Among them, one can find cartographers, geographers, agricultural engineers, and architects. Besides that, the cost of geographic data acquisition is so high that much important is given to acquisition plans during GIS design and less interest is given to the database design process. Especially first time designers do not perceive the importance of a database schema that is independent of a specific GIS product. Conceptual design preserves the independence between data types and the logical schema of the product. Moreover, relying on the GDB conceptual schema users can better understand what part of the geographic reality is represented in the database. The main goal of this research work is to define a set of reverse engineering procedures for spatial databases that can support either creation or evolution if conceptual GDB schemas. It is expected that these procedures can enhance the quality of GDB design as well as contribute to the popularization of GDB conceptual modeling. Three different geographic data input formats to GIS are investigated and a reverse engineering system architecture for them is proposed. Resulting conceptual (sub)schemas are based on the framework GeoFrame.

[pt] Como um novo e poderoso paradigma para modelagem e implementação de sistemas de software, os sistemas multiagentes necessitam de metodologias, linguagens de modelagem, plataformas de desenvolvimento e linguagens de programação que explorem seus benefícios e características particulares. Contudo, diferentes metodologias, linguagens e plataformas para sistemas multiagentes propõem abstrações variadas e com definições muito diferentes. Nesse contexto, é necessário criar frameworks conceituais que definam as abstrações, seus relacionamentos e seus comportamentos. Como em qualquer novo paradigma para engenharia de software, o sucesso e a difusão de sistemas multiagentes requerem, entre outras tecnologias de software baseadas em agentes, linguagens de modelagem que explorem o uso de abstrações relacionadas a agentes e promovam o refinamento dos modelos de design para código. Esta tese contempla a definição de um framework conceitual para sistemas multiagentes chamado TAO e uma linguagem de modelagem para sistemas multiagentes chamada MAS-ML. Os objetivos desta tese são descrever os aspectos estáticos e dinâmicos das abstrações freqüentemente utilizadas em sistemas multiagentes definindo um framework conceitual, propor uma linguagem de modelagem que descreva diagramas estáticos e dinâmicos para modelar esses aspectos e descrever o refinamento dos modelos estáticos para código. / [en] As a powerful and new paradigm for designing and implementing software systems, multi-agent systems require methodologies, modeling languages, development platforms and programming languages that explore their benefits and their peculiar characteristics. However, different methodologies, languages and platforms for multi-agent systems propose very distinct and varied sets of abstraction. In this context, there is a need for creating a conceptual framework that defines the frequently used multi-agent system abstractions, their relationships and their behavior. As it is the case with any new software engineering paradigm, the successful and widespread deployment of multi-agent systems require modeling languages, among other agent-based software technologies, that explore the use of agentrelated abstractions and promote the traceability from the design models to code. This thesis contemplates the definition of a multi-agent system conceptual framework called TAO and of a multi-agent system modeling language called MAS-ML. Our goals are to describe the structural and dynamic aspects of the abstractions commonly used in multi-agent systems by defining a conceptual framework, to propose a modeling language that describes structural and dynamic diagrams to model such aspects and to present the traceability from the structural models into code.